A Year in Reading: Alix Ohlin

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2012 was the year of Edward St. Aubyn for me. I started reading his Patrick Melrose novels (the first four of which were published in a collected edition by Picador in January) and couldn’t stop. The series follows Patrick from his privileged, abusive childhood in France through a drug-saturated trip into the abyss in New York City to his first faltering steps towards adulthood in England. The prose is brutal, elegant, acidly funny. No one is spared — not Patrick’s selfish, weak-willed parents, not even his pitiful childhood self. Although the novels sketch a corrosive portrait of life among England’s upper class, the affections and failures they present also feel universal. I don’t think I’ve ever read books so utterly lacking in sentiment, and yet so completely heartbreaking.

Other books I read and enjoyed this year include Treasure Island!!! by Sara Levine, a caustic, unrelenting look at failure, featuring an ill-fated parrot; Kevin Young’s wide-ranging, beautifully written book of cultural criticism, The Grey Album; Elaine Dundy’sThe Dud Avocado, as fresh and funny on American expat life in Paris as it must have been when it was first published in 1958; and Doppler, a brief sort-of-comic parable by the Norwegian writer Erlend Loe, about a man who, after getting hit on the head, decides to live in the woods and hang out with a moose named Bongo.

Alix Ohlin
is the author of four books, most recently Signs and Wonders and Inside, which was a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Rogers Writer's Trust Prize. Her work has appeared in Best American Short Stories and Best American Nonrequired Reading. A native of Montreal, she now lives in Pennsylvania.

It has been a difficult year in reading for me because I have found myself increasingly drawn to reading snippets of news from my phone instead of books, and when that becomes too much for me to handle mentally or emotionally, escaping into cheesy super-hero television shows on the CW.

I don’t read a lot of contemporary memoirs, family memoirs especially, for the simple reason that almost all of them are offensively bad. They lurch between poles of self-pity and self-aggrandizement and exhibit a poor sense of their authors’ own proper placement in the landscape. So the greatest and most pleasant surprise of the past year for me was a memoir called Cheerful Money, written by Tad Friend, about the high-Wasp culture in the twilight of which he was raised, and the marks it left on the author and his charismatic relatives. Its tone, generous yet clear-eyed, seems unimprovable to me. And the book’s storytelling architecture is extraordinarily sly: rather than just setting down the tale of his family’s eccentricities curdling into affliction in the roughly linear way most Fall-of-the-House-of-X-stories propose, Friend causes past and present to coexist in something like the fruitfully associative way they do in therapy – no coincidence, as therapy turns out to be one of the book’s unexpected subjects.
What could be more bravely uncommercial, in this day and age, than a book-length elegy for American noblesse oblige? Cheerful Money reminds me of the woefully neglected fiction of Peter Taylor, in that it’s about the death of an unpopular way of life, a phenomenon easy to judge in hindsight but tragically disorienting to those living through it. The fact that there is something about Friend’s subject matter – all that squandered money, all those twee nicknames -- that campaigns against being taken seriously only makes his achievement that much more impressive. It’s a book that deserves to become a standard of its much-abused form.
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Frances de Pontes Peebles was born in Recife, Brazil and raised in Miami, FL. Her debut novel, The Seamstress, recently won the Elle Grand Prix for Fiction in 2008. Her short stories have appeared in Zoetrope: All Story, Indiana Review, The Missouri Review, and The O. Henry Prize Stories Anthology 2005. She currently lives in Chicago. Read more about her at www.francesdepontespeebles.comSome books easily slip from my mind - a few months after reading them, I can't recall their titles or plots. This probably says more about my memory than the quality of the books. But there are stories that stay with me. Months pass and I will recall a character, or a particularly moving scene, or a vivid landscape. My favorite books always haunt me.In 2008, I read the Regeneration Trilogy by Pat Barker and can't shake it from my memory. Barker's interconnected novels - Regeneration, The Eye in the Door, and The Ghost Road - are inspired by actual accounts of WWI soldiers and their military psychiatrist, Dr. Rivers. The bulk of the trilogy takes place away from the war, where Dr. Rivers must treat severely shell-shocked soldiers in order to send them back to the trenches. He's deeply conflicted about his work and the war, as are his patients. Barker doesn't flinch from depicting the soldiers' physical and emotional wounds, but her descriptions are never overwrought. The most heartbreaking scenes don't take place on the front lines but at home, where Barker's soldiers can't cope with normal life. In all three books, the consequences of war are more terrifying than war itself.Another great book is The Diving Pool by Yoko Ogawa. It consists of three novellas translated from the Japanese. Ogawa's characters seem gentle and conventional, but their loneliness drives them into dark places (both real and psychological). These are modern-day scary stories with eerie and surprising outcomes. Ogawa's prose is spare and lovely, which makes the novellas even more haunting.More from A Year in Reading 2008

Alex Rose is a co-founder and editor of Hotel St. George Press. He is the author of the The Musical Illusionist and Other Tales, praised by Library Journal as "a potential cult classic" and the Village Voice as "uncanny." His stories and essays have appeared in the Reading Room, McSweeney's, the North American Review, the Forward and the Providence Journal, among others. As a filmmaker, Rose's short films and videos have screened in over two dozen festivals worldwide, as well as on many television networks, including HBO, ShowTime, Comedy Central, the BBC and MTV.Of the many atheist manifestos to hit the shelves within the past few years - among them, The End of Faith, Breaking the Spell, and God is Not Great - none have been so deliciously rewarding as The God Delusion, by the world-renowned evolutionary biologist, Richard Dawkins.It's to his credit that Dawkins has never been concerned with the tactics of the science vs. faith debate, with strategic savvy and political niceties, but simply with determining what is true. He believes that the "God hypothesis" falls in the realm of science in much the same way that other matters, such as the chemical composition of stars, or the mechanics of visual perception were once considered unanswerable until clear-headed investigation proved otherwise. Similarly, he claims, if we are genuinely concerned with the universe, with what exists and what does not, we should want to use modern methods and reasoning to reach a conclusion, as we do with nearly every other practical endeavor, rather than resort to myths, atavisms and soothsayings.Because he is smart, Dawkins is careful not to state unequivocally that no omniscient deity could exist, only that the likelihood is so low that one may just as reasonably presume the existence of Zeus, Thor, or the "flying spaghetti monster." The case he makes for this position is exhaustive, factoring in countless examples from biology, philosophy, history, politics and human rights.As punishing as he can be, however, Dawkins is no provocateur. Indeed, his approach is neither superior and exasperated (like Hitchens and Harris), nor apologetic and kiddy-gloved (like Dennet). Not since Bertrand Russell has the balance between criticism and tolerance, between intellectual rigor and deeply felt compassion, been so masterfully struck.More from A Year in Reading 2007

Last year, Dan Wickett, proprietor of the Emerging Writers Network and its accompanying blog sent me his list of best books by emerging writers. The post was a big hit, and he was kind enough to share this year's list with us. Enjoy:NovelsAmerican Purgatorio by John Haskell (interview, audio) - Haskell follows up his I Am Not Jackson Pollack with a page turner of a novel. He has adapted to the longer form with no problem at all.Please Don't Come Back From the Moon by Dean Bakopoulos (excerpt) - This is the debut effort by Dean, who has also published many excellent short stories in literary journals the past few years.Homeland by Sam Lipsyte (excerpt) - This one won't be unfamiliar to LitBlog readers. Lipsyte's paperback original has some great black humor and was well deserving of the attention it garnered.Bitter Milk by John McManus (excerpt [pdf]) - John's debut novel after two well received short story collections, and it is quite original with a narrator that may or may not exist, and if he does, it could be in various relationships to the youth he narrates about.Belly by Lisa Selin Davis (excerpt) - Another debut effort, Davis takes an interesting look at how small to mid-size American towns are changing, or Walmartizing, in the 21st Century. That she doesthis and allows her readers deep into the relationships of a specific family is pretty impressive.Garner by Kirstin Allio (excerpt) - A winner from Coffee House Press - Allio writes of a small New England town and sets her tale nearly a century in the past. Her descriptions of the landscapes and the townfolk put her readers right in their lives.Last year's list had two authors that were established, but not nearly as much as they should have been, in Steve Yarbrough and Percival Everett. This year sees a similarity with authors Lee Martin and Walter Kirn:The Bright Forever by Lee Martin (excerpt) - His second novel and sixth book (including a hard to find chapbook) overall, The Bright Forever is a stunning novel told in various points of view. A little girl disappears and Martin slowly allows his readers the full story - the anguish and honesty he is able to infuse his characters with as they spill this tale is incredible.Mission to America by Walter Kirn (excerpt) - Like Martin, not a newcomer, but a well-respected author who hasn't received the sort of attention that he has with this latest effort which only boosts Kirn's reputation as one of today's better satirists. He takes on religion, new ageism, health nuts, and many others his latest.Short Story CollectionsSightseeing by Rattawut Lapcharoensap (excerpt) - An excellent debut collection from this author whose name is sprinkled about in the story anthologies the past two years - Best New American Writing, BASS, O'Henry, etc.God Lives in St. Petersburg by Tom Bissell (excerpt) - Bissell lets his experiences in the Peace Corps and as a journalist lead him into many excellent short stories mainly set throughout countries formerly part of the USSR. The best in this collection will rival the best you'll read this year.Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits by Laila Lalami (blog) - This collection, Lalami's first, follows four Moroccans as they try to find what they hope will be better lives if they can get into Spain. The stories are very well written and the collection is set up very interestingly with the story of the attempted trip to Spain leading off, and then individual stories about each of the four characters Lalami concentrates on - first a story of each of their lives prior to the trip, and then a story of each of their lives after it.We're in Trouble by Christopher Coake (excerpt) - Coake is a writer not afraid to tackle the longer story as this collection has a novella or two in it. He's also not afraid to tackle heartbreak and sorrow, but does so in a manner that doesn't beat his readers up. He gets right into the minds and feelings of his characters.Copy Cats by David Crouse (excerpt) - One of this year's Flannery O'Connor Short Fiction Award winners. The collection has some excellent stories, including the title story which leads it off, but the big winner is a stunning novella that leads me to hoping Crouse is working on something a bit longer like a debut novel to look forward to.Big Cats by Holiday Reinhorn (excerpt) - With her debut, Reinhorn slips into T.C. Boyle neighborhood - her opening lines completely grab the reader and let them know that the author is completely aware of her characters and their situations. The stories also tend to grab odd situations you hear of occasionally, but rarely read about, and use them to allow her characters to move their lives forward.Non-FictionOrphans by Charles D'Ambrosio - (excerpt) - This collection of essays has the bonus of being an interesting little book published by Clear Cut Press. Besides the different look, and pocket size, the book has D'Ambrosio's writing which is frequently stellar. I found myself reading about religious haunted houses and mobile home inspections without being able to set the book down - a true testament to his writing. Beyond those couple of essays, there are some really interesting efforts that were previously published in a Seattle alternative newspaper about topics I'd be more inclined to read about.House: A Memoir by Michael Ruhlman Ruhlman continues as one of the best in the non-fiction genre these days, choosing a topic and writing about it, completely covering it and allowing the reader to appreciate it in ways they may never have considered. Following past efforts that took on single sex education, cooking, and wooden boats, this time around, Ruhlman writes of a 200 year old house in Cleveland that he and his wife purchase and restore.Voices from Chernobyl by Svetlana Alexievich (translated by Keith Gessen) (interview) - I don't think I set this 300 plus page book down once after I started reading it. Alexievich, at danger to her own self, visited the area surrounding the Chernobyl nuclear reactor and interviewed anybody she could find who would talk - people who had been firefighters, or relatives of residents who evacuated, those who didn't, hunters of animals left behind, etc. It's absolutely fascinating to read what happened, how people found out, and the various reactions to the news.One Last BookThe Bear Bryant Funeral Train by Brad Vice - Unless you already have a copy, or are willing to drop nearly a thousand dollars to obtain one, you'll not get a chance to read this former Flannery O'Connor Short Fiction Award winner. The press recalled and pulped as many of the copies as they could (and it sounds like they got most of the small print run) due to what is being referred to as plagiarism in the opening story, "Tuscaloosa Knights." It's too bad something else couldn't have been figured out as Vice is one helluva writer. If you look around, you can find many of the stories that are within the pages of the few copies floating around - at least two have been in the Algonquin Best New Stories of the South series in the past few years. A recent Five Points has the story, Mule, in it. The story that caused the trouble can be seen at www.storysouth.com (look for the link there to Thicket, where the story truly is located).{Ed: Dan recently responded to further allegations of plagiarism against Brad Vice at his blog.}